Educational philosophy

The Revolution: A novel from prehistoric times Plato Although it is not apt to start an essay on a philosophy with a critical remark, for before learning how to criticize, one should learn the content to be criticized, yet , notwithstanding its great merits and value, it seems necessary to criticize Plato's philosophy of education right at the outset. Plato's philosophy of education aims at preparing learners for future life. This preparation for the future life is almost rejected by modern educational philosophers like Rousseau and Dewey. But this rejection of the aim to prepare children for future life does not in any sense divest Plato's thought of its significance even in the 21st century. Heidegger in his essay On Plato's doctrine of truth clearly established the relevance of Plato's thought for the 20th century, and those remarks are well taken even in the 21st century. Plato's significance lies in giving a clear understanding to educators about th...

Jean Piaget, the Swiss biological epistemologist, who worked on cognitive development in humans, has divided cognitive development into four stages: 1. Sensori-Motor (0-2) 2. Pre Operational (2-7) 3. Concrete Operational (7-11) 4. Formal Operational (11-14) Sensori Motor Stage(0-2) The most significant achievement in this stage of life is object permanence. An infant does not have a developed memory, and due to this reason things’ impression on an infant’s mind does not last for long. Thus when an infant watches an attractive colorful thing for example, he goes for it and wants to grab it. However, if that object is removed from the sight of the infant, he no longer searches for it. From this observation Piaget concludes that infants do not have a well defined memory, for had they possess a well defined memory they would have remembered that object and tried to search for it. However by the age of 11 months, infants develop this kind of memory and then they are able to pursue...

Consciousness means that a person is aware of something; consciousness is always of something and it is never of nothing. This statement is pivotal in understanding what consciousness is. Awareness becomes consciousness when one identifies something as something. When one identifies a chair as a chair with a certain motive, assigning a certain meaning to it, one is said to be conscious of it. On the other hand a mere viewing of a chair as a part of a general background, not giving any meaning to it cannot be called consciousness. Consciousness, if it does not have an object in the described manner, remains a potential. It is actualized when it becomes consciousness of something, some object, in the manner described above. Some people say that to be conscious also means that one is aware of space and time. So according to this view those who are not in their proper wits actually are not aware of space and time.  This does not mean that they are not in space and time, and ...

Motorola SURFboard SB5101U DOCSIS 2.0 Cable Modem - RoHS Cisco has announced three new architectural specializations as the prerequisite for maintaining the status of Cisco partners. These are , border less Networks, Collaboration and Data Centre. Cisco Management has decided that rather than selling the specific technologies Cisco will shift its focus towards architectural solutions. Cisco Gold partners will now have to attain all the three specializations in order to maintain their status. For Silver partners the requirement is of obtain any of the two specializations and premier partners have to get Cisco Express Foundation specialization which they are already getting. These architectural specializations, according to Cisco, will cost $ 50,000 less than the traditional CCIE specializations. The reason is these new specializations need less lab-work and certain parts of the course work that made Cisco specializations lengthy are also deleted. The registration in these programs will...

Islamic modernism is a movement within Islam that tries to reconcile Islamic thought and practice with the modern notions of life. These modern notions include scientific knowledge, philosophy ,human sciences modern social organizations and state along with its institutions. According to Allama Iqbal, who was the most important Muslim philosopher of the twentith century, there is no essential difference difference in the teachings of Islam and the Western understanding of life. The essence of Islamic civilization and the West are similiar to each other. However, the difference is in the materialization of this essence; Islamic spirit is similar to the Western spirit but both are different in their body. according to Iqbal the present misunderstanding among Muslims that science and other advancements of knowledge are contradictory to the basic teachings of Islam is wrong. Islam supports science and knowledge. As far as science is concerned , Iqbal says that there is ...

For some people ,intellectual intution and knowledge coming from it cannot be scientific or has no logical explaination. Ibn-e-Sina, or Avicenna, the greatest of Islamic philosophers, has said certain very important things about the nature of Intuitive knowledge. Avicenna has used the example of prophetic knowledge and poetic metaphors. According to Avicenna those who think that intuitive or prophetic knowledge or the knowledge acquired through revelation is not logical and does not follow the Aristotelian definition of scientific knowledge are wrong. According to Aristotle, one is said to be in possession of scientific knowledge or know something in a scientific manner, when one is able to establish that something exists and can also demonstrate the cause behind the existence of that thing. So, if someone claims that he has the knowledge of this universe, then that person should know this fact as a necessity along with the causes behind the existence of this universe. Th...

Introduction Imam Ghazali , the famous scholastic philosopher and thinker of the middle ages, was famous for his impact on Muslim intellectual history. Accordin to Allama Iqba, Islamic civilization saw three stages of development. The first stage was when Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was alive and guiding the Muslim nation. This stage is termed as the age of faith, for believers had the source of truth, the prophet himself, with them, and the only thing required from them was to have faith in whatever prophet used to tell them. Thus, Hazrat Abu bakr, was given the title of Siddique , for he attested Prophet’s journey to heavens or Mairaj , without any hesitation or delay. This kind of attitude was required from the believers when prophet (PBUH) was alive. That is why this age is called the age of faith. The second era started after Prophet (PBUH) was not among the Muslims. During this period Ummah or the Muslim community had to think and decide about the religious matters in the light of t...

Online education is growing like a giant weed, and the time when it would have completely replaced the brick and mortar schools is not far away. Already the signs of this shift in education system are visible in the form of extraordinary growth in the number of enrolments. There are so many questions that are raised by the people at the threshold of this new era of education. However, it appears that among education experts the debate is already over in the favor of online education. The reason is that educationists preferred constructivism over behaviorism as philosophy of education. And there is no wonder in it that people automatically associate online education with constructivism. Every concept related to online education, the whole idea of online education, is actually based on constructivist understanding. This concept of learning necessitates that there be mixed ability and mixed aged groups. For proper learning takes place in those situations in which one learn through inte...

Even if one Keeps aside parents’ complaint that their children are not getting proper attention at brick and mortar schools and are rendered ill-disposed towards learning , the need to establish online schools seems imperative. The reason is there are so many students who are not in a position to attend their schools regularly because they are earning for their families, feel stranded and bullied at the school, are involved in parenting or are so ill that they just can’t go there. Then there are those who did not pass a course and still want to earn credit. Furthermore, due to the advancement in the field of educational technology and increase in the availability of  mobile phones and lap tops, the idea of having online education system seems a dream actualized.  With almost everyone having somekind of portable device mobile learning is likely to become the choice mode of learning. One can imagine what kind of a boast this new trend will bestow upon the business of portable ...

ABU ALI AL-HYSAYN IBN-'ABD-ALLAH IBN-SINA born in 980 AD in Persia was renowned as the prince and chief of Physicians. He was also a polymath and was known to have the knowledge mathematics, geology, music, astronomy and Poetry and Art. He was a famous and eminent person of his times both as a philosopher and as a statesman, for he held the positions equivalent to prime minister in the government of his times. In his Divine Comedy, Dante paid a great tribute to him. [1] According to a tradition, when he was serving in the court as a vizier, because of his views that created a disturbance in the army, he became a victim of Amir’s wrath and was compelled to flee away to a place where he worked on his famous treatise on medicine known  Al-qanoon fil tib,  translated as the Cannon of Medicine, in English. In those days, physicians were not supposed to charge any fee when they visited the ill person during his illness. They had to examine the sick person, had to test the urine...